Earliest times
1 The foundation stones
The island + Britain’s prehistory > The Celts + The Romans + Roman life
The island
However complicated the modern industrial state
may be, land and climate affect life in every
country. They affect social and economic life,
population and even politics. Britain is no
exception. It has a milder climate than much of the
European mainland because it lies in the way of the
Gulf Stream, which brings warm water and winds
from the Gulf of Mexico. Within Britain there are
differences of climate between north and south,
cast and west, The north is on average 5°C cooler
than the south. Annual rainfall in the east is on
average about 600 mm, while in many parts of the
west it is more than double that. The countryside is
varied also. The north and west are mountainous or
hilly. Much of the south and east is fairly flat, or
low-lying. This means that the south and east on
the whole have better agricultural conditions, and
it is possible to harvest crops in early August, two
months earlier than in the north, So it is not
surprising that southeast Britain has always been
the most populated part of the island. For this
reason it has always had the most political power.
Britain is an island, and Britain's history has been
closely connected with the sea. Until modern times
it was as easy to travel across water as it was across
land, where roads were frequently unusable. At
moments of great danger Britain has been saved
from danger by its surrounding seas. Britain’s
history and its strong national sense have been
shaped by the sea.
‘Stonehenge isthe most powerful monsament of Brain's prehistory. les
-pupose i stil not properly understod. Those who bue Stonehenge knew
how to cut and move ver lng pices of stone, and place horizontal stone
beams across the upright lars. They also had the authority to contol large
rugmbers of workers, and to fetch some ofthe stone from distant parts of
Wales.
Britain’s prehistory
Britain has not always been an island. It became
one only after the end of the last ice age. The
temperature rose and the ice cap melted, flooding
the lower-lying land that is now under the North
Sea and the English Channel.
The Ice Age was not just one long equally cold
period. There were warmer times when the ice cap
retreated, and colder periods when the ice cap
reached as far south as the River Thames. Our first
evidence of human life isa few stone tools, dating
from one of the warmer periods, about 250,000 nc
These simple objects show that there were two
different kinds of inhabitant. The earlier group
made their tools from flakes of flint, similar in kind
to stone tools found across the north European
plain as far as Russia. The other group made tools
from a central core of flint, probably the earliest
method of human tool making, which spread from
A hand axe, made from fin, fos ae Swanscombe in north KentAn Illustrated History of Britain
Africa to Europe. Hand axes made in this way have
been found widely, as far north as Yorkshire and as
far west as Wales.
However, the ice advanced again and Britain
became hardly habitable until another milder
period, probably around 50,000 nc. During this
time a new type of human being seems to have
arrived, who was the ancestor of the modem
British. These people looked similar to the modern
British, but were probably smaller and had a life
span of only about thirty years.
Around 10,000 sc, as the Ice Age drew to a close,
Britain was peopled by small groups of hunters,
gatherers and fishers. Few had settled homes, and
they seemed to have followed herds of deer which
provided them with food and clothing. By about
5000 nc Britain had finally become an island,
and had also become heavily forested. For the
wanderer—hunter culture this was a disaster, for the
cold-loving deer and other animals on which they
lived largely died out.
About 3000 nc Neolithic (or New Stone Age)
people crossed the narrow sea from Europe in small
round boats of bent wood covered with animal
skins. Each could carry one or two persons. These
people kept animals and grew corn crops, and knew
how to make pottery. They probably came from
either the Iberian (Spanish) peninsula or even the
North African coast. They were mall, dark, and
long-headed people, and may be the forefathers of
dark-haired inhabitants of Wales and Cornwall
today. They settled in the western parts of Britain
and Ireland, from Cornwall at the southwest end of
Britain all the way to the far north
These were the first of several waves of invaders
before the first arrival of the Romans in 55 xc. It
used to be thought that these waves of invaders
marked fresh stages in British development. How-
ever, although they must have brought new ideas
and methods, it is now thought that the changing
pattern of Britain’s prehistory was the result of local
economic and social forces
The great “public works” of this time, which
needed a huge organisation of labour, tell us a little
of how prehistoric Britain was developing. The
earlier of these works were great “barrows”, or
burial mounds, made of earth or stone. Most of
these barrows are found on the chalk uplands of
south Britain. Today these uplands have poor soil
and few trees, but they were not like that then.
They were airy woodlands that could easily be
cleared for farming, and as a result were the most
‘There uere Stone Age sites from
one end of Briain to the other
This stone hut, at Slava Bro,
Orkney, off the north coast of
Scotland, was suddenly covered
bby a sandstorm before 2000 vc
Unlike southern sites, where
wood was used whick has since
rote, Shara Brae ial stone,
and the stone fei is sil
ihre. Behind the fireplace
(bottom left) here are stnage
Shelves agains the back wall. Oy
the rights probably a stone sided
bed, im which rushes or heather
were placed for warmth1 The foundation stones
easily habitable part of the countryside. Eventually,
and over a very long period, these areas became
overfarmed, while by 1400 nc the climate became
drier, and as a result this land could no longer
support many people. It is difficult today to imagine
these areas, particularly the uplands of Wilts
and Dorset, as heavily peopled areas.
Yet the monuments remain. After 3000 ne the
chalkland people started building great circles of
earth banks and ditches. Inside, they built wooden
buildings and stone circles. These “henges”, as they
are called, were centres of religious, political and
economic power. By far the most spectacular, both
then and now, was Stonehenge, which was built
in separate stages over a period of more than a
thousand years. The precise purposes of Stonehenge
remain a mystery, but during the second phase of
building, after about 2400 1c, huge bluestones were
brought to the site from south Wales. This could
only have been achieved because the political
authority of the area surrounding Stonehenge was
recognised over a very large area, indeed probably
over the whole of the British Isles. The movement
of these bluestones was an extremely important
event, the story of which was passed on from
generation to generation. Three thousand years
later, these unwritten memories were recorded in
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of Britain, written
in 1136.
Stonehenge was almost certainly a sort of capital,
to which the chiefs of other groups came from all
over Britain. Certainly, earth or stone henges were
built in many parts of Britain, as far as the Orkney
Islands north of Scotland, and as far south as
Cornwall. They seem to have been copies of the
great Stonehenge in the south. In Ireland the
centre of prehistoric civilisation grew around the
River Boyne and at Tara in Ulster. The importance
of these places in folk memory far outlasted the
builders of the monuments.
After 2400 ne new groups of people arrived in
southeast Britain from Europe. They were round-
headed and strongly built, taller than Neolithic
Britons. It is not known whether they invaded by
armed force, or whether they were invited by
The rave of one of the “Beaker” people, at Barack, Cambridgeshire,
shout 1800 vc: It contains a finely decorated pottery beaker and a copper or
bromze dagger. Both items distinguished the Beaker people from the eater
abun Th os assem lace Feet one of «ro of
crows”, or buna mounds
Neolithic Britons because of their military or metal-
working skills. Their influence was soon felt and, as
a result, they became leaders of British society.
‘Their arrival is marked by the first individual
graves, furnished with pottery beakers, from which
these people get their name: the “Beaker” people.
Why did people now decide to be buried separately
and give up the old communal burial barrows? It is
difficult to be certain, but ie is thought that the old
barrows were built partly to please the gods of the
soil, in the hope that this would stop the chalk
upland soil getting poorer. The Beaker people
brought with them from Europe a new cereal,
barley, which could grow almost anywhere. Perhaps
they felt it was no longer necessary to please the
gods of the chalk upland soilAn Illustrated History of Britain
‘Maiden Castle, Dorset, i one ofthe langest Celi il-foms
ofthe early Inn Ae, Its seeneth can sll be clearly seen,
but even these fortifications were no defence against
disciplined Roman tops
The Beaker people probably spoke an Indo-
European language. They seem to have brought a
single culture to the whole of Britain. They also
brought skills to make bronze tools and these began
to replace stone ones. But they accepted many of
the old ways. Stonehenge remained the most
important centre until 1300 nc. The Beaker
people's richest graves were there, and they added a
new circle of thirty stone columns, this time
connected by stone lintels, or cross-pieces. British
society continued to be centred on a number of
henges across the countryside.
However, from about 1300 ne onwards the henge
civilisation seems to have become less important,
and was overtaken by a new form of society in
southern England, that of a settled farming class.
At first this farming society developed in order to
feed the people at the henges, but eventually it
became more important and powerful as it grew
richer. The new farmers grew wealthy because they
learned to enrich the soil with natural waste
materials so that it did not become poor and
useless. This change probably happened at about
the same time that the chalk uplands were
becoming drier. Family villages and fortified
enclosures appeared actoss the landscape, in lower-
lying areas as well as on the chalk hills, and the old
central control of Stonehenge and the other henges
was lost.
6
‘A reconstructed Ion Age farm. Farms like this wee established in southeast Britain
fiom about 700 nc onwards. This may have been the main o even ony building; larg
round us increasingly took the place of smaller ones. "Their houses are lage, round,
boul of planks and wickerwork, the roof being a dome of thatch,” wrote the Greek
Philosopher Strabo. In most of Calle Buzope huts were square
From this time, too, power seems to have shifted to
the Thames valley and southeast Britain. Except for
short periods, political and economic power has
remained in the southeast ever since. Hill-forts
replaced henges as the centres of local power, and
most of these were found in the southeast,
suggesting that the land successfully supported more
people here than elsewhere
‘There was another reason for the shift of power
eastwards. A number of better-designed bronze
swords have been found in the Thames valley,
suggesting that the local people had more advanced
metalworking skills, Many of these swords have
been found in river beds, almost certainly thrown
in for religious reasons. This custom may be the
origin of the story of the legendary King Arthur's
sword, which was given to him from out of the
water and which was thrown back into the water
when he died.
The Celts
Around 700 ne, another group of people began to
arrive. Many of them were tall, and had fair or red
hair and blue eyes. These were the Celts, who
probably came from central Europe or further east,
from southern Russia, and had moved slowly
westwards in earlier centuries. The Celts were
technically advanced. They knew how to work with1 The foundation stones
iron, and could make better weapons than the
people who used bronze. It is possible that they
drove many of the older inhabitants westwards into
Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The Celts began to
control all the lowland areas of Britain, and were
joined by new arrivals from the European mainland.
They continued to arrive in one wave after another
over the next seven hundred yeats.
The Celts are important in British history because
they are the ancestors of many of the people in
Highland Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and Cornwall
today. The Iberian people of Wales and Cornwall
took on the new Celtic culture. Celtic languages,
which have been continuously used in some areas
since that time, are still spoken. The British today
are often described as Anglo-Saxon. It would be
hetter to call them Anglo-Cele
Our knowledge of the Celts is slight. As with
previous groups of settlers, we do not even know for
certain whether the Celts invaded Brit
peacefully as a result of the lively trade with Europe
from about 750 wc onwards. At first most of Celtic
Britain seems to have developed in a generally
similar way. But from about 500 pc trade contact
with Europe declined, and regional differences
hetween northwest and southeast Britain increased,
The Celts were organised into different tribes, and
tribal chiefs were chosen from each family or tribe,
sometimes as the result of fighting matches between
individuals, and sometimes by election.
n or came
The last Celtic arrivals from Europe were the Belgic
tribes. It was natural for them to settle in the
southeast of Britain, probably pushing other Celtic
tribes northwards as they did so. At any rate, when
Julius Caesar briefly visited Britain in 55 ac he saw
that the Belgic tribes were different from the older
inhabitants. “The interior is inhabited”, he wrote,
“by peoples who consider themselves indigenous,
the coast by people who have crossed from
Belgium. Nearly all of these still keep the names of
the [European] tribes from which they came.
The Celtic tribes continued the same kind of
agriculture as the Bronze Age people before them.
But their use of iron technology and thei
The Stanick horse mask shows the fine anise work of Celtic
m about an 50. The sinple ines ana lack of detail hive a very powerful
introduction of more advanced ploughing methods
made it possible for them to farm heavier soils
However, they continued to use, and build, hill-
forts. The increase of these, particularly in the
southeast, suggests that the Celts were highly
successful farmers, growing enough food for a much
larger population
The hill-fort remained the centre for local groups.
The insides of these hill-forts were filled with
houses, and they became the simple economic
capitals and smaller “towns” of the different tribal
areas into which Britain was now divided. Today
the empty hill-forts stand on lonely hilltops. Yet
they remained local economic centres long after the
Romans came to Britain, and long after they went.
7An Illustrated History of Britain
Within living memory certain annual fairs were
associated with hill-forts. For example, there was an
annual September fair on the site of a Dorset hill-
fort, which was used by the writer Thomas Hardy in
his novel Far from the Madding Crowd, published in
1874.
The Celis traded across tribal borders and trade was
probably important for political and social contact
hetween the tribes. Trade with Ireland went
through the island of Anglesey. The two main trade
outlets eastwards to Europe were the settlements
along the Thames River in the south and on the
Firth of Forth in the north, It is no accident that
the present-day capitals of England and Scotland
stand on or near these two ancient trade centres.
Much trade, both inside and beyond Britain, was
conducted by river and sea. For money the Celts
used iron bars, until they began to copy the Roman.
coins they saw used in Gaul (France).
According to the Romans, the Celtic men wore
shirts and breeches (knee-length trousers), and
striped or checked cloaks fastened by a pin. It is
possible that the Scottish tartan and dress
developed from this “striped cloak”. The Celts were
also “very careful about cleanliness and neatness”,
as one Roman wrote. “Neither man nor woman,”
he went on, "however poor, was seen either ragged
or dirty.”
The Celtic tribes were ruled over by a warrior class,
of which the priests, or Druids, seem to have been
particularly important members. These Druids
could not read or write, but they memorised all the
religious teachings, the tribal laws, history,
medicine and other knowledge necessary in Celtic
society. The Druids from different tribes all over
Britain probably met once a year. They had no
temples, but they met in sacred groves of trees, on
certain hills, by rivers or by river sources. We know
little of their kind of worship except that at times it
included human sacrifice.
During the Celtic period women may have had
more independence than they had again for
hundreds of years. When the Romans invaded
Britain two of the largest tribes were ruled by
women who fought from their chariots. The most
8
powerful Celt to stand up to the Romans was a
woman, Boadicea. She had become queen of her
tribe when her husband had died. She was tall,
with long red hair, and had a frightening
appearance. In ap 61 she led her tribe against the
Romans. She nearly drove them from Britain, and
she destroyed London, the Roman capital, before
she was defeated and killed. Roman writers
commented on the courage and strength of women
in battle, and leave an impression of a measure of
equality between the sexes among the richer Celts.
The Romans
The name “Britain” comes from the word
“Pretani”, the Greco-Roman word for the
inhabitants of Britain. The Romans mispronounced
the word and called the island “Britannia”.
‘The Romans had invaded because the Celts of
Britain were working with the Celts of Gaul against
them. The British Celts were giving them food, and
allowing them to hide in Britain. There was
another reason. The Celts used cattle to pull their
ploughs and this meant that richer, heavier land
could be farmed. Under the Celts Britain had
become an important food producer because of its
mild climate. It now exported com and animals, as
well as hunting dogs and slaves, to the European
mainland. The Romans could make use of British
food for their own army fighting the Gauls.
‘The Romans brought the skills of reading and
writing to Britain. The written word was important
for spreading ideas and also for establishing power.
As early as ap 80, as one Roman at the time noted,
the governor Agricola “trained the sons of chiefs in
the liberal arts ... the result was that the people
who used to reject Latin began to use it in speech
and writing, Further the wearing of our national
dress came to be valued and the toga [the Roman.
cloak] came into fashion.” While the Celtic
peasantry remained illiterate and only Celtic-
speaking, a number of town dwellers spoke Latin
and Greek with ease, and the richer landowners in
the country almost certainly used Latin. But Latin
completely disappeared both in its spoken and
written forms when the Anglo-Saxons invaded1 The foundation stones
Britain in the fifth century ap. Britain was probably
more literate under the Romans than it was to be
again until the fifteenth century.
Julius Caesar first came to Britain in 55 nc, but it
‘vas not until almost a century later, in aD 43, that
a Roman army actually occupied Britain. The
Romans were determined to conquer the whole
island. They had little difficulty, apart from
Boadicea's revolt, because they had a better trained
army and because the Celtic tribes fought among
themselves. The Romans considered the Celts as
war-mad, “high spirited and quick for battle”, a
description some would still give the Scots, Irish
and Welsh today.
The Romans established a Romano-British culture
across the southern half of Britain, from the River
Humber to the River Severn. This part of Britain
‘was inside the empire. Beyond were the upland
areas, under Roman control but not developed
These areas were watched from the towns of York,
Chester and Caerleon in the western peninsula of
Britain that later became known as Wales. Each of
these towns was held by a Roman legion of about
7,000 men. The total Roman army in Britain was
about 40,000 men.
The Romans could not conquer “Caledonia”, as
they called Scotland, although they spent over a
century trying to do so. At last they built a strong,
wall along the northern border, named after the
Emperor Hadrian who planned it. At the time,
Hadrian's wall was simply intended to keep out
raiders from the north. But it also marked the
border between the two later countries, England
and Scotland. Eventually, the border was
established a few miles further north. Efforts to
change it in later centuries did not sueceed, mainly
because on either side of the border an invading
army found its supply line overstretched. A natural
point of balance had been found.
Roman control of Britain came to an end as the
empire began to collapse. The first signs were the
attacks by Celts of Caledonia in ap 367. The
Roman legions found it more and more difficult to
stop the raiders from crossing Hadrian’s wall. The
same was happening on the European mainland as
Germanic groups, Saxons and Franks, began to raid
the coast of Gaul. In ap 409 Rome pulled its last
soldiers out of Britain and the Romano-British, the
Romanised Celts, were left to fight alone against
the Scots, the Irish and Saxon raiders from
Germany. The following year Rome itself fell to
raiders, When Britain called to Rome for help
against the raiders from Saxon Germany in the
mid-fifth century, no answer came.
Roman life
The most obvious characteristic of Roman Britain
was its towns, which were the basis of Roman
administration and civilisation. Many grew out of
Celtic settlements, military camps or market
centres. Broadly, there were three different kinds of
town in Roman Britain, two of which were towns
established by Roman charter. These were the
coloniae, towns peopled by Roman settlers, and the
‘municipia, large cities in which the whole
population was given Roman citizenship. The third
kind, the civitas, included the old Celtic tribal
capitals, through which the Romans administered
the Celtic population in the countryside. At first
these towns had no walls. Then, probably from the
end of the second century to the end of the third
century ab, almost every town was given walls. At
first many of these were no more than earthworks,
but by ab 300 all towns had thick stone walls.
The Romans left about twenty large towns of about
5,000 inhabitants, and almost one hundred smaller
ones. Many of these towns were at first army camps,
and the Latin word for camp, castra, has remained
part of many town names to this day (with the
ending chester, caster or cester): Gloucester, Lei-
cester, Doncaster, Winchester, Chester, Lancaster
and many others besides, These towns were built
with stone as well as wood, and had planned
streets, markets and shops. Some buildings had
central heating. They were connected by roads
which were so well built that they survived when
later roads broke up. These roads continued to be
used long after the Romans left, and became the
main roads of modem Britain. Six of these Roman
roads met in London, a capital city of about 20,000
9An Illustrated History of Britain
people. London was twice the size of Paris, and
possibly the most important trading centre of
northern Europe, because southeast Britain
produced so much com for export.
Outside the towns, the biggest change during the
Roman occupation was the growth of large farms,
called “villas”. These belonged to the richer Britons
who were, like the townspeople, more Roman than
Cele in their manners. Each villa had many
workers, The villas were usually close to towns so
that the crops could be sold easily. There
growing difference between the rich and those who
did the actual work on the land. These, and most
people, still lived in the same kind of round huts
and villages which the Celts had been living in four
hundred years earlier, when the Romans arrived
In some ways life in Roman Britain seems very
civilised, but it was also hard for all except the
richest. The bodies buried in a Roman graveyard at
York show that life expectancy was low. Half the
entire population died between the ages of twenty
and forty, while 15 per cent died before reaching,
the age of twenty
10
The reconstruction of « Roman
atchen about ay 100 sons ps
cana equipment. The tall pos, or
amphorac, were for wine or ol
The Romans produced wine in
Briain, but they also imported i
frum southern Europe
It is very difficult to be sure how many people were
living in Britain when the Romans left. Probably it
was as many as five million, partly because of the
peace and the increased economic life which the
Romans had brought to the country. The new wave
of invaders changed all that.2 The Saxon invasion
The invaders * Government and society + Christianity: the partnership of
Church and state + The Vikings + Who should be king?
The invaders
The wealth of Britain by the fourth century, the
result of its mild climare and centuries of peace, was
a temptation to the greedy. At first the Germanic
tribes only raided Britain, but after ap 430 they
began to settle. The newcomers were warlike and
illiterate. We owe our knowledge of this period
mainly to an English monk named Bede, who lived
three hundred years later. His story of events in his
Ecclesiastical History of the English People has been
proved generally correct by archaeological
evidence.
Bede tells us that the invaders came from three
powerful Germanic tribes, the Saxons, Angles and
Jutes. The Jutes settled mainly in Kent and along
the south coast, and were soon considered no dif-
ferent from the Angles and Saxons, The Angles
settled in the east, and also in the north Midlands,
while the Saxons settled between the Jutes and the
Angles in a band of land from the Thames Estuary
westwards. The Anglo-Saxon migrations gave the
larger part of Britain its new name, England, “the
land of the Angles’
The British Celts fought the raiders and settlers
from Germany as well as they could. However,
during the next hundred years they were slowly
pushed westwards until by 570 they were forced
west of Gloucester. Finally most were driven into
the mountains in the far west, which the Saxons
called “Weallas”, or “Wales”, meaning “the land of
the foreigners”. Some Celts were driven into
Cornwall, where they later accepted the rule of
Saxon lords. In the north, other Celts were driven
into the lowlands of the country which became
||
|
The Anglo-Saxon invasions and the kingdoms they established
known as Scotland. Some Celts stayed behind, and
many became slaves of the Saxons. Hardly anything
is left of Celtic language or culture in England,
except for the names of some rivers, Thames,
Mersey, Severn and Avon, and two large cities,
London and Leeds.
The strength of Anglo-Saxon culture is obvious
even today. Days of the week were named after
Germanic gods: Tig (Tuesday), Wodin
(Wednesday), Thor (Thursday), Frei (Friday). New
place-names appeared on the map. The first of
uAn Illustrated History of Britain
these show that the earliest Saxon villages, like the
Celtic ones, were family villages. The ending -ing
meant folk or family, thus “Reading” is the place of
the family of Rada, “Hastings” of the family of
Hasta. Ham means farm, ton means settlement.
Birmingham, Nottingham or Southampton, for
example, are Saxon place-names, Because the
Anglo-Saxon kings often established settlements,
Kingston is a frequent place-name.
The Anglo-Saxons established a number of
kingdoms, some of which still exist in county or
regional names to this day: Essex (East Saxons),
Sussex (South Saxons), Wessex (West Saxons),
Middlesex (probably a kingdom of Middle Saxons),
East Anglia (East Angles). By the middle of the
seventh century the three largest kingdoms, those
of Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex, were the
‘most powerful.
Left: A silver penny showing Offa, king of Mercia (an 757-896). Offa
‘wus more powerful than any ofthe other ArlSaxon king of his time or
before him. His coins were ofa higher quality than any coins used since the
deparce ofthe Romans four hundred years eal.
Right: A gold coin of King Off, a dnece copy of an Arab dinar ofthe year
‘AD 774. Most of iis in Arabi, but on one side i als has “OFFA REX",
Tetells us thatthe Anglo-Saxons of Brain were well aware of a more
‘advanced economic system in the distant Arab empire, and also that even as
faraway as Britain and northern Europe, Arab-type gol coin were mare
trusted than arty others. Te shows how great were the distances covered by
international trade at Hs time
Te was not until a century later that one of these
kings, King Offa of Mercia (757-96), claimed
“kingship of the English”. He had good reason to
do so. He was powerful enough to employ thou-
sands of men to build a huge dyke, or earth wall,
the length of the Welsh border to keep out the
troublesome Celts. But although he was the most
powerful king of his time, he did not control all of
England.
The power of Mercia did not survive after Offa’s
death. At that time, a king’s power depended on
the personal loyalty of his followers. After his death,
the next king had to work hard to rebuild these
personal feelings of loyalty. Most people still
believed, as the Celts had done, that a man's first
2
duty was to his own family. However, things were
changing. The Saxon kings began to replace loyalty
to family with loyalty to lord and king.
Government and society
The Saxons created institutions which made the
English state strong for the next 500 years. One of
these institutions was the King’s Council, called the
Witan. The Witan probably grew out of informal
groups of senior warriors and churchmen to whom
kings like Offa had turned for advice or support on
difficult matters. By the tenth century the Witan
was a formal body, issuing laws and charters. It was
not at all democratic, and the king could decide to
ignore the Witan’s advice. But he knew that it
might be dangerous to do so. For the Witan's
authority was based on its right to choose kings,
and to agree the use of the king's laws. Without its
support the king’s own authority was in danger.
The Witan established a system which remained an
important part of the king's method of government.
Even today, the king or queen has a Privy Council,
a group of advisers on the affairs of state.
The Saxons divided the land into new adminis-
trative areas, based on shires, or counties. These
shires, established by the end of the tenth century,
remained almost exactly the same for a thousand
yeats. “Shite” is the Saxon word, “county” the
Norman one, but both are still used. (In 1974 the
counties were reorganised, but the new system is
very like the old one.) Over each shire was ap-
pointed a shire reeve, the king's local administrator.
In time his name became shortened to “sheriff”.
‘Anglo-Saxon technology changed the shape of
English agriculture. The Celts had kept small,
square fields which were well suited to the light
plough they used, drawn either by an animal or two
people. This plough could turn corners easily. The
‘Anglo-Saxons introduced a far heavier plough
which was better able to plough in long straight
lines across the field. It was particularly useful for
cultivating heavier soils. But it required six or eight
oxen to pull it, and it was difficult to turn, This
heavier plough led to changes in land ownership
and organisation. In order to make the best use of2. The Saxon invasion
Reconsruction of an Anglo-Saxon village. Each house had probably only
(me room, with a wooden fioor with «pt beneath it. The pit rey have been
sed for storage, but more probably to hep the howe ofthe damp groural
Each wile ais rd “lord” means “loaf ward" or “bead
keeper”, while lad af kneader” or “bread maker a reminder
that the basis of Saxon soceey was farming, The duty ofthe village hea, or
lord, wus to rote the farm and its produce
village land, it was divided into two or three very
large fields. These were then divided again into
long thin strips. Each family had a number of strips
in each of these fields, amounting probably toa
family “holding” of twenty or so acres. Ploughing
these long thin strips was easier because it avoided
the problem of turning. Few individual families
could afford to keep a team of oxen, and these had
to he shared on a co-operative basis.
One of these fields would be used for planting
spring crops, and another for autumn crops. The
third area would be left to rest for a year, and with
the other areas after harvest, would be used as
common land for animals to feed on. This Anglo-
Saxon pattern, which became more and more
common, was the basis of English agriculture for a
thousand years, until the eighteenth century.
It needs only a moment’s thought to recognise that
the fair division of land and of teams of oxen, and
the sensible management of village land shared out
between families, meant that villagers had to work
more closely together than they had ever done
before.
The Saxons settled previously unfarmed areas. They
cut down many forested areas in valleys to farm the
richer lowland soil, and they began to drain the wet
land, Asa result, almost all the villages which
appear on eighteenth-century maps already existed
by the eleventh century.
In each district was a “manor” or large house. This
was a simple building where local villagers came to
pay taxes, where justice was administered, and
where men met together to join the Anglo-Saxon
army, the fyrd. The lord of the manor had to
organise all this, and make sure village land was
properly shared. It was the beginning of the
manorial system which teached its fullest
development under the Normans.
At first the lords, or aldermen, were simply local
officials. But by the beginning of the eleventh
century they were warlords, and were often called
bya new Danish name, earl, Both words, alderman
and earl, remain with us today: aldermen are
elected officers in local government, and earls are
high ranking nobles. It was the beginning of a class
system, made up of king, lords, soldiers and workers
on the land. One other important class developed
luring the Saxon period, the men of learning,
These came from the Christian Church.
Christianity: the partnership of
Church and state
We cannot know how or when Christianity first
reached Britain, but it was certainly well before
Christianity was accepted by the Roman Emperor
Constantine in the early fourth century ap. In the
last hundred years of Roman government
Christianity became firmly established across
Britain, both in Roman-controlled areas and
beyond. However, the Anglo-Saxons belonged to
an older Germanic religion, and they drove the
Celts into the west and north. In the Celtic areas
Christianity continued to spread, bringing paganism
toan end. The map of Wales shows a number of
place-names beginning or ending with llan,
meaning the site of a small Celtic monastery around
which a village or town grew
In 597 Pope Gregory the Great sent a monk,
Augustine, to re-establish Christianity in England.
He went to Canterbury, the capital of the king of
Kent. He did so because the king's wife came from
1BAn Illustrated History of Britain
FE Flues traits -
qhoprtencuzetinn,
“The opening page of St Luke's Gospel, made atthe Northmbian island of
Lindisfarne, about ar 698. In his History, Bede wrote how one man told
the pagans Northumbrian king, “when you ae siting in winter with your
lori the fasting all, with «good fire to warm and light it, a sparow flies
in from the stom of rain and srw outside. I fies in atone door, across the
lighted room and cut though th other door ina the darkness and storms
‘outside, In the same way man comes ino the ight fr short ime, but of
‘what came before, or what isto follow, man is gronant If this new teaching
tells us something more certain, it seems womh following,” Christianity
agave the Anglo-Saxon work new certainty.
Europe and was already Christian. Augustine
became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in 601.
He was very successful. Several ruling families in
England accepted Christianity. But Augustine and
his group of monks made little progress with the
ordinary people. This was partly because Augustine
was interested in establishing Christian authority,
and that meant bringing rulers to the new faith.
It was the Celtic Church which brought
Christianity to the ordinary people of Britain. The
Celtic bishops went out from their monasteries of
Wales, Ireland and Scotland, walking from village
4
to village teaching Christianity. In spite of the
differences between Anglo-Saxons and Celts, these
bishops seem to have been readily accepted in
Anglo-Saxon areas. The bishops from the Roman
Church lived at the courts of the kings, which they
made centres of Church power across England. The
two Christian Churches, Celtic and Roman, could
hardly have been more different in character. One
‘was most interested in the hearts of ordinary
people, the other was interested in authority and,
organisation. The competition between the Celtic
and Roman Churches reached a crisis because they
disagreed over the date of Easter. In 663 at the
Synod (meeting) of Whithy the king of
Northumbria decided to support the Roman
Church. The Celtic Church retreated as Rome
extended its authority over all Christians, even in
Celtic parts of the island.
England had become Christian very quickly. By 660
only Sussex and the Isle of Wight had not accepted
the new faith. Twenty years larer, English teachers
returned to the lands from which the Anglo-Saxons
had come, bringing Christianity to much of
Germany.
Saxon kings helped the Church to grow, but the
Church also increased the power of kings. Bishops
gave kings their support, which made it harder for
royal power to be questioned. Kings had "God's
approval”. The value of Church approval was all
the greater because of the uncertainty of the royal
succession. An eldest son did not automatically
become king, as kings were chosen from among the
members of the royal family, and any member who
had enough soldiers might try for the throne. In
addition, ata time when one king might try to
conquer a neighbouring kingdom, he would
probably have a son to whom he would wish to pass
this enlarged kingdom when he died. And so when
King Offa arranged for his son to be crowned as his
successor, he made sure that this was done at a
Christian ceremony led by a bishop. It was good
political propaganda, because it suggested that kings
were chosen not only by people but also by God.
There were other ways in which the Church
increased the power of the English state. It
established monasteries, or minsters, for example2 The Saxon invasion
—— __ _
Westminster, which were places of learning and
education. These monasteries trained the men who
could read and write, so that they had the necessary
skills for the growth of royal and Church authority.
The king who made most use of the Church was,
Alfred, the great king who ruled Wessex from 871—
899, He used the literate men of the Church to
help establish a system of law, to educate the
people and to write down important matters, He
started the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the most
important source, together with Bede’s Ecclesiastical
History of the English People, for understanding the
period.
During the next hundred years, laws were made on
a large number of matters. By the eleventh century
royal authority probably went wider and deeper in
England than in any other European country.
This process gave power into the hands of those
who could read and write, and in this way class
divisions were increased. The power of landlords,
who had been given land by the king, was increased
because their names were written down. Peasants,
who could neither read nor write, could lose their
traditional rights ro their land, because their rights
were not registered
The Anglo-Saxon kings also preferred the Roman
Church to the Celtic Church for economic reasons.
Villages and towns grew around the monasteries
and increased local trade. Many bishops and monks
in England were from the Frankish lands (France
and Germany) and elsewhere. They were invited by
English rulers who wished to benefit from closer
Church and economic contact with Europe. Most
of these bishops and monks seem to have come
from churches or monasteries along Europe's vital
trade routes. In this way close contact with many
parts of Europe was encouraged. In addition they all
used Latin, the written language of Rome, and this
encouraged English trade with the continent.
Increased literacy itself helped trade. Anglo
England became well known in Europe for its
exports of woollen goods, cheese, hunting dogs,
portery and metal goods. It imported wine, fish,
pepper, jewellery and wheel-made pottery
The Vikings
Towards the end of the eighth century new raiders
were tempted by Britain’s wealth. These were the
Vikings, a word which probably means either
“pirates” or “the people of the sea inlets”, and they
came from Norway and Denmark. Like the Anglo-
Saxons they only raided at first. They burnt
churches and monasteries along the east, north and
‘west coasts of Britain and Ireland. London was itself
raided in 842.
In 865 the Vikings invaded Britain once it was
clear that the quarrelling Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
could not keep them out. This time they came
to conquer and to settle. The Vikings quickly
accepted Christianity and did not disturb the local
population. By 875 only King Alfred in the west
of Wessex held out against the Vikings, who had
already taken most of England. After some serious
defeats Alfred won a decisive battle in 878, and
eight years later he captured London. He was strong
enough to make a treaty with the Vikings.
Gps
a Viking contro!
‘The Viking invasions and the areas they brought under their contro.
15An Illustrated History of Britain
ee
Viking rule was recognised in the east and north of
England. It was called the Danelaw, the land where
the law of the Danes ruled. In the rest of the
country Alfred was recognised as king. During his
struggle against the Danes, he had built walled
settlements to keep them out. These were called
burghs. They became prosperous market towns, and
the word, now usually spelt borough, is one of the
commonest endings to place names, as well as the
name of the unit of municipal or town
administration today.
Who should be king?
By 950 England seemed rich and peaceful
after the troubles of the Viking invasion. But soon.
afterwards the Danish Vikings started raiding
westwards. The Saxon king, Ethelred, decided to
pay the Vikings to stay away. To find the money he
set a tax on all his people, called Danegeld, or
“Danish money”. It was the beginning of a regular
tax system of the people which would provicle the
money for armies. The effects of this tax were most
heavily felt by the ordinary villagers, because they
had to provide enough money for their village
landlord to pay Danegeld
16
The sory ofthe bale of Hastings and th
‘Norman conquest of Saxon England is
told inthe Bayews tapestry carton,
"Horo the king is led says the
Latin writing, and beneath it stands a
‘man with an arrow in his eye, beleced
to be King Harold. Inthe pictur sip
below the main scene, men are seen
stealing the clothing fom the dead and
‘woud, a common practice on
Datlfelds through the centuries,
The Oseberg Viking hip, made in
about ab 800, was 21 metres long and
camied about 35 men. Although this
particular ship was probably only sed
along the coast, ships of similar ce
were used to invade Britain. Their
design wus brant. When an exact
copy of similar ship was used to cross
the Alani to Amenca in 1893, ts
putin aoee, "the finest merchant
ships of ur day. have practically
the same type of bottom asthe Viking
ships,
When Ethelred died Cnut (or Canute), the leader
of the Danish Vikings, controlled much of
England. He became king for the simple reason
that the royal council, the Witan, and everyone
eke, feared disorder. Rule by a Danish king was far
better than rule by no one at all. Cnut died in
1035, and his son died shortly after, in 1040. The
Witan chose Edward, one of Saxon Ethelred'’s sons,
tobe king.
Edward, known as “the Confessor”, was more
interested in the Church than in kingship. Church
building had been going on for over a century, and
he encouraged it. By the time Edward died there
was a church in almost every village, The pattern of
the English village, with its manor house and
church, dates from this time. Edward started a new
church fic for a king at Westminster, just outside
the city of London. In fact Westminster Abbey was
a Norman, not a Saxon building, because he had
spent almost all his life in Normandy, and his
mother was a daughter of the duke of Normandy.
As their name suggests, the Normans were people
from the north. They were the children and
grandchildren of Vikings who had captured, and
settled in, northern France. They had soon become2. The Saxon invasion
French in their language and Christian in their
religion, But they were still well known for their
fighting skills.
Edward only lived until 1066, when he died
without an obvious heir. The question of who
should follow him as king was one of the most
important in English history. Edward had brought
many Normans to his English court from France
These Normans were not liked by the more
powerfull Saxon nobles, particularly by the most
powerful family of Wessex, the Godwinsons. It was
a Godwinson, Harold, whom the Witan chose to
be the next king of England. Harold had already
shown his bravery and ability. He had no royal
blood, but he seemed a good choice for the throne
Harold's right to the English throne was challenged
by Duke William of Normandy. William had two
claims to the English throne. His first claim was.
that King Edward had promised it to him. The
second claim was that Harold, who had visited.
William in 1064 or 1065, had promised William
that he, Harold, would not try to take the throne
for himself. Harold did not deny this second claim,
but said that he had been forced to make the
promise, and that because it was made unwillingly
not tied by it
Harold was faced by two dangers, one in the south
and one in the north. The Danish Vikings had not
given up their claim to the English throne. In 1066
Harold had to march north into Yorkshire to defeat
the Danes. No sooner had he defeated them than
he learne that William had landed in England with
an army. His men were tired, but they had no time
to rest. They marched south as fast as possible.
Harold decided not to wait for the whole
y, the fyrd, to gather because William’s army
was small. He thought he could beat them with the
men who had done so well against the Dan
However, the Norman soldiers were better arme
better organised, and were mounted on horses. If he
had waited, Harold might have won. But he was
defeated and killed in battle near Hastings.
axon’
William marched to London, which quickly gave
in when he began to burn villages outside the city.
He was crowned king of England in Edward's new
church of Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day,
1066. A new period had begun.3. The Celtic kingdoms
Wales + Ireland + Scotland
England has always played the most powerful part
in the history of the British Isles. However, the
other three countries, Wales, Ireland and Scotland,
have a different history. Until recently few
historians looked at British history except from an
English point of view. But the stories of Wales,
Ireland and Scotland are also important, because
their people still feel different from the Anglo
Saxon English. The experience of the Welsh, Irish
and Scots helps to explain the feeling they have
today.
Wales
By the eighth century most of the Celts had been
driven into the Welsh peninsula. They were kept
out of England by Offa's Dyke, the huge earth wall
built in ap 779. These Celts, called Welsh by the
‘Anglo-Saxons, called themselves cymry, “fellow
countrymen”.
Because Wales is a mountainous country, the cymry
could only live in the crowded valleys. The rest of
the land was rocky and too poor for anything
except keeping animals. For this reason the
population remained small. It only grew to over
half a million in the eighteenth century. Life was
hard and so was the behaviour of the people.
Slavery was common, as it had been all through
Celtic Britain
Society was based on family groupings, each of
which owned one or more village or farm
settlement. One by one in each group a strong
leader made himself king. These men must have
been tribal chiefs to begin with, who later managed
to become overlords over neighbouring family
groups. Each of these kings tried to conquer the
others, and the idea of a high, or senior, king
developed.
18
Wales and it
Peli kingdoms
The early kings travelled around their kingdoms to
remind the people of their control. They travelled
with their hungry followers and soldiers. The
ordinary people ran away into the hills and woods
when the king's men approached their village.
Life was dangerous, treacherous and bloody. In
1043 the king of Glamorgan died of old age. It was
aan unusual event, because between 949 and 1066
no less than thirty-five Welsh rulers died violently,
usually killed by a cymry, a fellow countryman.
In 1039 Gruffydd ap (son of ) Llewelyn was the first
Welsh high king strong enough to rule over all
Wales. He was also the last, and in order to remain
in control he spent almost the whole of his reign
fighting his enemies. Like many other Welsh rulers,
Gruffydd was killed by a cymry while defending
Wales against the Saxons. Welsh kings after him
were able to rule only after they had promised
loyalty to Edward the Confessor, king of England.
‘The story of an independent and united Wales was
over almost as soon as it had begun3. The Celtic kingdoms
Ireland
Ireland was never invaded by either the Romans or
the Anglo-Saxons. It was a land of monasteries and
had a flourishing Celtic culture. As in Wales,
people were known by the family grouping they
belonged to. Outside their tribe they had no
protection and no name of their own. They had
only the name of their tribe. The kings in this
tribal society were chosen by election. The idea was
that the strongest man should lead. In fact the
system led to continuous challenges.
Five kingdoms grew up in Ireland: Ulster in the
north, Munster in the southwest, Leinster in the
southeast, Connaught in the west, with Tara as the
seat of the high kings of Ireland.
Christianity came to Ireland in about an 430. The
beginning of Irelands history dates from that time,
because for the first time there were people who
could write down events. The message of
Christianity was spread in Ireland by a British slave,
Patrick, who became the “patron saint” of Ireland.
Christianity brought writing, which weakened the
position of the Druids, who depended on memory
and the spoken word. Christian monasteries grew
up, frequently along the coast.
This period is often called Ireland's “golden age”
Invaders were unknown and culture flowered. But it
is also true that the five kingdoms were often at
war, each trying to gain advantage over the other,
often with great cruelty.
Ireland's Cee kingdoms
TARA
(seat ofthe
igh Kings
oftreland)
A page from the Book of Kel, the finest surviving lsh Celie manuscripe
‘The round touer of Devenish is one of only wo that stil stand at Celie
‘monastic sites n Uiter, Ireland. This one was bul che rwelth centery
ap. The entrance is about three metres ahoxe ground level, rat ha ladder
‘that could fe pulled in so tha enemies eon noe enter. This design may well
have been introduced fier the Viking raids bgan inthe ninth century
iTAn Illustrated History of Britain
This “golden age” suddenly ended with the arrival
of Viking raiders, who stole all that the monasteries
had. Very little was left except the stone memorials
that the Vikings could not carry away.
The Vikings, who traded with Constantinople
(now Istanbul), Iraly, and with central Russia,
brought fresh economic and political action into
Irish life. Viking raids forced the Irish to unite, In
859 Ireland chose its first high king, but it was not
an effective solution because of the quarrels that
took place each time a new high king was chosen.
Viking trade led to the first towns and ports. For
the Celts, who had always lived in small
settlements, these were revolutionary. Dublin,
Ireland’ future capital, was founded by the Vikings.
‘As an effective method of rule the high kingship of
Ireland lasted only twelve years, from 1002 to 1014,
while Ireland was ruled by Brian Boru. He is still
looked back on as Ireland’s greatest ruler. He tried
to create one single Ireland, and encouraged the
growth of organisation ~ in the Church, in
administration, and in learning
Brian Boru died in battle against the Vikings. One
of the five Irish kings, the king of Leinster, fought
on the Vikings’ side, Just over a century later
another king of Leinster invited the Normans of
England to help him against his high king. This
gave the Normans the excuse they wanted to
enlarge their kingdom.
Scotland
Asa result of its geography, Scotland has two
different societies. In the centre of Scotland
mountains stretch to the far north and across to the
west, beyond which lie many islands. To the east
and to the south the lowland hills are gentler, and
much of the countryside is like England, rich,
welcoming and easy to farm. North of the
“Highland Line”, as the division between highland
and lowland is called, people stayed tied to their
‘own family groups. South and east of this line
society was more easily influenced by the changes
taking place in England.
20
Toma, the wester Scottish isan on which St Columb established his abbey
{nv AD 563 when he came Ireland, From Tona Columba sen his missionaries
to bring Christianity tothe Scots. The present cathedral was bul in about
1500.
Scotland was populated by four separate groups of
people. The main group, the Picts, lived mostly in
the north and northeast. They spoke Celtic as well
as another, probably older, language completely
unconnected with any known language today, and
they seem to have been the earliest inhabitants of
the land. The Picts were different from the Celts
because they inherited their rights, their names and
property from their mothers, not from their fathers
The non-Pictish inhabitants were mainly Scots.
The Scots were Celtic settlers who had started to
move into the western Highlands from Ireland in
the fourth century.
In 843 the Pictish and Scottish kingdoms were
united under a Scortish king, who could also
probably claim the Pictish throne through his
mother, in this way obeying both Scottish and
Pictish rules of kingship.
The third group were the Britons, who inhabited
the Lowlands, and had been part of the Romano-
British world, (The name of their kingdom,
Strathelyde, was used again in the county
reorganisation of 1974.) They had probably given
up their old tribal way of life by the sixth century.
Finally, there were Angles from Northumbria who.
had pushed northwards into the Scottish Lowlands.
Unity between Picts, Scots and Britons was
achieved for several reasons. They all shared a3 The Celtic kingdoms
TaEASDe ; Scotland its any poops.
yo
onkney eye
\ sae J
common Celtic culture, language and background.
Their economy mainly depended on keeping
animals. These animals were owned by the tribe as
awhole, and for this reason land was also held by
tribes, not by individual people. The common.
economic system increased their feeling of
belonging to the same kind of society and the
feeling of difference from the agricultural Lowlands.
The sense of common culture may have been
increased by marriage alliances between tribes. This
idea of common landholding remained strong until
the tribes of Scotland, called “clans”, collapsed in
the eighteenth century.
‘The spread of Celtic Christianity also helped to
unite the people. The first Christian mission to
Scotland had come to southwest Scotland in about
ap 400. Later, in 563, Columba, known as the
“Dove of the Church”, came from Ireland.
Through his work both Highland Scots and Picts
were brought to Christianity. He even, so it is said,
defeated a monster in Loch Ness, the first mention
of this famous creature. By the time of the Synod of
Whitby in 663, the Picts, Scots and Britons had all
been brought closer together by Christianity.
The Angles were very different from the Celts.
‘They had arrived in Britain in family groups, but
they soon began to accept authority from people
outside their own family. This was partly due to
their way of life. Although they kept some animals,
they spent more time growing crops. This meant
that land was held by individual people, each man
working in his own field. Land was distributed for
farming by the local lord. This system encouraged
the Angles of Scotland to develop a non-tribal
system of control, as the people of England further
south were doing. This increased their feeling of
difference from the Celtic tribal Highlanders further
north.
Finally, as in Ireland and in Wales, foreign invaders
increased the speed of political change. Vikings
attacked the coastal areas of Scotland, and they
settled on-many of the islands, Shetland, the
Orkneys, the Hebrides, and the Isle of Man
southwest of Scotland. In order to resist them, Picts
and Scots fought together against the enemy raiders
and settlers. When they could not push them out of.
the islands and coastal areas, they had to deal with
them politically. At first the Vikings, or
“Norsemen”, still served the king of Norway. But
communications with Norway were difficult. Slowly
the earls of Orkney and other areas found it easier
to accept the king of Scots as their overlord, rather
than the more distant king of Norway.
However, as the Welsh had also discovered, the
English were a greater danger than the Vikings. In
934 the Scots were seriously defeated by a Wessex
army pushing northwards. The Scots decided to
seek the friendship of the English, because of the
likely losses from war. England was obviously
stronger than Scotland but, luckily for the Scots,
both the north of England and Scotland were
difficult to control from London. The Scots hoped
that if they were reasonably peaceful the
Sassenachs, as they called the Saxons (and still call
the English), would leave them alone.
Scotland remained a difficult country to rule even
from its capital, Edinburgh. Anyone looking at a
map of Scotland can immediately see that control
of the Highlands and islands was a great problem.
Travel was often impossible in winter, and slow and
difficult in summer. It was easy for a clan chief or
noble to throw off the rule of the king.
a